The U.S. has a surprising amount of known rare earth deposits but the deposits aren’t really being explored extensively, much less mined because of economic reasons. The U.S. has the 4th largest lithium deposits, for example, but to mine it wouldn’t be competitive.
A mean, a year ago, I would have said, it’s just cheaper to buy them on global markets than mine them in California. But we’ll see how broke these tariffs make us. We might all have lithium lung and be paid in company scrip again in 15 years.
The U.S. has a surprising amount of known rare earth deposits but the deposits aren’t really being explored extensively, much less mined because of economic reasons. The U.S. has the 4th largest lithium deposits, for example, but to mine it wouldn’t be competitive.
A mean, a year ago, I would have said, it’s just cheaper to buy them on global markets than mine them in California. But we’ll see how broke these tariffs make us. We might all have lithium lung and be paid in company scrip again in 15 years.